Concert Series: Certainly So

Hailing from Birmingham, AL, childhood friends Tanner Gray and Colby Wilson have been writing music together for over ten years. The pair have drawn inspiration from different genres and eras – The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Grateful Dead, Vampire Weekend, and John Mayer to name a few. The music that comes from Gray and Wilson has always boasted blood harmonies as well as thoughtful, invoking lyrics.
Post high school, Gray and Wilson took different paths. Gray attended Mississippi State
University; Wilson stayed in Birmingham. While at MSU, Gray became acquainted with Chase Porter (bass) and Zach Corder (drums). Porter, Corder, and Gray would form and play in multiple groups during their time in Starkville, MS. Wilson, all the while, was writing music of his own with his group Smoking With the Bandit. After graduating in 2015, Porter made his way to Nashville to begin a career in Marketing. A year later, Gray and Corder made their post-graduate home in the panhandle of Florida, where they eventually formed The Graytones.
In the Spring of 2019, Gray and Wilson were reunited when Gray moved back to Birmingham in pursuit of a new job. Corder headed to Music City, catching up with Porter. Gray and Wilson picked up right where they left off in Alabama, and they soon felt a new project starting to take form.
As the duo recorded acoustic demos, they reached out to their Mississippi-born rhythm section. The demos were shared north to Nashville, and once Porter and Corder heard what Gray and Wilson were doing, they were all in. In September of 2019, Certainly So was formed. Several months later, in January 2020, the group was introduced to producer/engineer Toby Hulbert.
Hulbert had spent the last 8 years at Abbey Road in his hometown of London, England, and was currently in Nashville working alongside hitmaker Dave Cobb. Upon hearing the ‘Certainly So’ demos, he felt a similar sentiment as Porter and Corder did- he must be involved. Hulbert joined the team as producer. Certainly So and Hulbert gained access to East Avalon Recording Studio in Muscle Shoals through RCA’s Colin Lott during April 2020. Over the next two months, Hulbert and Lott teamed up to produce and engineer four weekend sessions, recording what would be the band’s debut album Future Self Only Dreams.
Following the Future Self Only Dreams release, Certainly So released Dreams of Green. The
record is a combination of the songs that did not sonically make the cut for Future Self Only
Dreams, but still deserved to be produced and recorded in their own style, and the new writes that fit the same vibe. Dreams of Green was recorded in the bands basement in the Inglewood area of Nashville and is intended it to be an extension of Future Self Only Dreams. Similarly to Future Self Only Dreams, Dreams of Green was engineered by Colin Lott and mixed by Toby Hulbert in 2021, but was self produced by the members of Certainly So. Dreams of Green was released in July 2022.
Certainly So released their first single in over a year “Alabama Blues” on April 21st 2023. Their follow up single “Tired For a Living” will be released on June 23rd 2023. Both were recorded in Muscle Shoals at East Avalon with Engineer Colin Lott and mixed by Toby Hulbert.
During late 2023 and 2024 the band released 5 singles for their upcoming album titled “Probably Not”. The songs released include “Miss America”, “1422”, “Patience” Lucid”, and “Panic Attack” with 5 new songs to be released with the album.